1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improved system and method for building a social network. More particularly, it relates to social networks built around activity on shared virtual objects and an expanded set of activity metrics.
2. Background Art
Social network analysis is a way of looking at how people interact. If one is able to understand the interaction patterns between people, it becomes possible to more quickly find people who might be able to answer questions, understand the impact of organizational change initiatives, and find people who serve as “bridges” between different parts of an organization.
One of the main drawbacks to social network analysis is that it is difficult to carry out. One research technique is to use in-person interviews, which can be very time consuming. Given the dynamic nature of a social network, this technique is far too slow to be of use.
The Lotus Discovery Server (LDS) is a Knowledge Management (KM) tool that allows users to more rapidly locate the people and information they need to answer their questions. It categorizes information from many different sources (referred to generally as knowledge repositories) and provides a coherent entry point for a user seeking information. Moreover, as users interact with LDS and the knowledge repositories that it manages, LDS can learn what the users of the system consider important by observing how users interact with knowledge resources. Thus, it becomes easier for users to quickly locate relevant information.
The focus of LDS is to provide specific knowledge or answers to localized inquiries; focusing users on the documents, categories, and people who can answer their questions. There is a need to go beyond these basic search capabilities in order to uncover the relationships between people that are implied by the way people work with documents.
Mechanisms have been proposed to infer social networks from electronic communication. Such mechanisms include the use of a graphical display to show a large set of interconnected people, use of synchronous chat as a source of connection data, use of electronic meetings as a source of connection data, use of citations and hyperlinks in Web pages, analysis of E-mail messages, use of the co-occurence of names in close proximity in Web documents, use of links found in home pages, use of co-authors of technical papers, use of exchanges between individuals in news groups, and use of organizational charts. In order to build a complete social network, however, there is a need in the art for a system and method which provide for a broader set of activity metrics, for the use of virtual objects, and for display filtering.
It is an object of the invention to provide an improved system and method for building a social network.